Ranty-Depressants (2008)

I was first diagnosed with depression when I was sixteen. Clumsily, by a doctor who may as well have been doing a sudoku during the consultation. I went in to complain about not sleeping, which I had already self-diagnosed was caused by the medical anomalies of thinking too much and having complex sexual fantasies set in the speech & drama costume room. Next thing I know I’m being threatened with questions like “Have you ever felt sad?” and “Do you worry all the time?’ I said I had and did, but denied any suicidal thoughts. According to Super-Scientific-Checklist-Beard that was enough to be charged with depression. I slumped in the musty beige seat, pale, acne annoyed and flat-haired as Dr Grumps sneezed out a prescription for anti-depressants and reached for the pamphlet ‘Buck Up Dickhead.’

I remember wandering out into the small town main street as a marked man. “YOU HAVE DEPRESSION!” The filthy neon billboard loomed down from above. I stared at a girl in the distance walking away – a girl from my class. I was different now. Separated. An invisible grey shroud kept me encased in glass. I sighed and thought about my after school routine of frozen coke and CD shopping. The cold spring wind barged past my halfway legs. A reflection turned clockwise in my glasses as a car gruffed past. I was alone.

I threw the tablets in the bin. I was cranky at Dr Pillock’s emotionally careless handling of my precious self and got Dr Reality to give me a second opinion. I probably didn’t have depression, but the thought that I could was enough to evoke all the symptoms. I wasn’t exactly high-fiving with schoolmates over this truth nugget, but quietly self-checking as I passed off this viscous circle with the lunchtime basketball.

A decade later I would escort myself into my local G.P and ask to go on mood enhancing medication. After my relationship’s two year anniversary was brutally marred by an inexplicably ferocious beating of the doldrums, I was treating it like a spiritual emergency. Something was clearly wrong. After ten years of writing my ups and downs off as ‘sensitive me’ I had to bite the carob bullet and admit that there was a distinctly alien presence behind my eyes. A black substance creeping through my veins. A first degree soul deficiency. This shit was chemical, and with my girlfriend weeping on her bed, oh-so fucking personal. (cue Alien montage with Justin in pharmaceutically sponsored robot suit.)

Nobody really wants to talk about mental illness, let’s face it. It scares everyone, and well it should. A broken leg is kind of cute and you can write your name on the cast. A broken mind is mysterious and bottomless and the thing of disturbing art and newspaper tragedies. We’re conditioned to hear the words ‘anti-depressants’ and assume the taker is some white eyed zombie pinned to the bed and talking backwards, or radiating twisted suicide frequencies and eying off your house as a site for a potential freak-out. Young people taking anti-depressants is very, very common. Despite repeated advertising campaigns, nobody’s very willing to name check mental illness with the same matter-of-factness as migraines or PMS.

After three months I’m planning to go off mine (correctly, tapering dosage) as quite frankly I miss crying and am unnerved by the numbing of my ‘sad reflexes.’ But I find the more I talk about the whole thing, and the more people thank me for bringing it up, the more connected to the world I feel and along with laughter, acceptance is damn good medicine.

Comments

Our culture does a terrible job of teaching people how to deal with their feelings. Many people behave as if only neutral and extreme happy are normal. Anger, grief, sorrow, these are also a part of the human emotional landscape. By treating them as exceptional people end up feeling isolated and the grief becomes magnified and potentially destructive.

After many years of dealing with depression I have learned a few tricks to pull myself out, like telling myself, “I feel sad now, but I know this is only temporary.” Or (I know this sounds extreme), “I can kill myself any time, but I would like to see what happens in the next episode of Dr Who.” Or I take a walk, or I cry and scream and take a nap, or I find a friendly shopkeeper and talk about the price of chips. Anything to transition myself into another mind state. Mostly I acknowledge that I have a right to how I’m feeling and it’s okay to feel sad or angry, other people feel that way too.

I saw your show on Sunday night, and now I’ve spent about 3 hours reading your various pages on your website and watching a few of your songs on YouTube. You’re a fucking inspiration. Being able to transmute whatever is potentially destroying you into a form of creative expression is such a powerful gift to give an audience – it makes me want to do the same.

I’ve just been reading through your story and I’d like to just say thankyou.
I’m about to turn twenty one, am coming off medications that were prescribed for mental health at the start of this year and, like you, met with a counsellor during highschool who hung the heavy sign of ‘DEPRESSION’ around my neck.
Its good to know that I’m not the only one who has had to wade through the shitty bog of mental illness.

I’ve been watching some of your clips & reading your story over the last few weeks and I want to thank you for your bare honesty. I’ve often felt so alone in all the crap I’ve been wading through over the years. I put my creativity on hold, stopped writing songs and believeing they actually meant something. It sounds like its been a tough journey for you but you’ve managed to keep going and you’re doing some gerat things. You’ve inspired me to pick up my instrument and just give it a go, I think I’m beginning to refind that passion for music I once had and maybe thats exactly the therapy I needed. You’re not just entertainement, you’re inspiration. Keep doing great things

Thanks everyone. It does get easier. Exercise, write, get counselling. That’s a nice start. You’re so not alone – most of us feel woefully, pathetically corrupt and flawed a lot of the time. Humans are emotionally vulnerable by design, and today’s hyped up society doesn’t help. Godspeed.

hi justin
i’d just like to say thanks for this, i’m 14 and was 13 when they said i had “generalised anxiety disorder and depression. Not many people think you people actually get depression, and it’s nice to know i’m not alone. thankyou